Interviewing The Rascals' Felix Cavaliere: New Christmas album, show at Penn's Peak, have him feeling Good Lovin'

Interviewing The Rascals' Felix Cavaliere: Christmas album, show at Penn's Peak, have him feeling Good Lovin'

With nearly 50 years in the music business, a half-dozen iconic 1960s hits such as “Good Lovin’” with The Young Rascals, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it might seem like Felix Cavaliere has done it all.

Yet, despite playing annual holiday shows, such as a memorable performance at the 1996 Christmas Spectacular at Stabler Arena, Cavaliere had never recorded a Christmas album.

Now he has.

Cavaliere in November released “Christmas Joy,” a 10-track collection that covers the blue-eyed soul of “Christmas In Your Arms,” the jazz of “Christmas in New Orleans” and classics such as “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Run, Run Rudolph.”

The album also forms the basis of Rockin’ The Holidays with Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals, a concert show that Sunday stops at Penn’s Peak near Jim Thorpe.

In a recent telephone interview from his home in Nashville, Cavaliere spoke about the new Christmas album, the show, The Rascals and more.

FELIX CAVALIERE: “Well, the show is basically from an album that I just recorded. I’ve just always wanted to do one, and I’ve always wanted to do a Christmas show. And with the old days and the old group and the record company, those days they weren’t that interested in doing something that was only on the market for four to six weeks. But my idea behind it was kind of to make it last forever.

“And so [all these years later], my new manager, he said, ‘Why don’t you do a Christmas album?’ And I said, ‘Wow, well, because first of all it’s expensive, you know? And second of all, it only lasts a certain amount of time, and records are really not selling. And he said, ‘Yeah, but we can back it up with a Christmas show.’ I thought that was a great idea. Because most of the time during these months, there’s really nothing to work – there’s not that much to do. And frankly, I need to work – I like to work. It’s fun to work, it’s something new to have in your mind, that’s for sure.

“So this was completely new, and that’s really how it happened.”

I read that there’s going to be a high school choir at the show? [Lehighton Area High School choir]

“Well, that’s another idea that he instilled. He said, ‘Why don’t we have a choir in every locale. And I said, ‘Wow, can we do that?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, why not? We’ll go out, we’ll do charts for everybody to sing, they’ll have fun, we’ll have fun. And I think it will be something that people will really like to see because they’ll probably know a lot of these people. I just thought it was a great idea.”

Foreigner does that. Wherever they perform, they have a local choir sing with them on “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, that’s interesting.”

So how long is the choir on stage?

“They do about, I think, five songs with us, two songs of their own. Two carols. It would be too hard to incorporate them into the whole show. Besides, it’s really a rock show. I mean, we – I don’t know if you remember many years ago there was a Phil Spector album?”

Oh yeah.

“Well, I do two of those songs and that kind of inspired me. That thing is part of my youth, that album, you know? It just was so brilliantly done, you know? And I give them credit on it for the arrangements that we did on their songs.”

And that was the other question I was going to ask: You obviously do your hits and The Rascals hits in the show?

“Well, we do some. But I really wanted to keep this a Christmas show. So we’ll do, like, ‘Groovin’,’ ‘People Got To Be Free,’ ‘Good Lovin’’ and ‘Beautiful Morning’ for sure. You’d be surprised. The shows, we have to keep it within a certain amount of time in a lot of the places. We’re trying to so an hour and a half at least of good, fun, spirit music. I don’t know, I think we really need it right now, tell you the truth. Just coming back from New York and the mess there. It’s a mess in a lot of places. We need a little bit of Christmas joy. That’s the name of the album, and frankly, I think we should be able to spread it a little bit for a couple of weeks, anyway.”

Amen. Hey, I wanted to talk a little bit about [the Young Rascals stage show] “Once Upon a Dream.” I saw the performance this summer and it was really a fun show and interesting show. Tell me the story behind that – was it Little Steven [Van Zandt]’s idea? Did you guys come together? Tell me how the whole thing happened.

“Well, basically it was his idea to do something with us and that something – he really wanted to do something different, you know? And the difference would be, well, we’ll tell a story. And so the story pretty much came from us. I mean, I basically spent a lot of time telling him a lot of that story. But then he decided to bring it into a large production type of a show, which we did on Broadway.

“And of course that screen [used in the show] was like a 50-foot screen, there’s only two in existence. So it was very interesting. It was very expensive, and I think that was the problem with it – to take it on the road was a little bit too difficult, you know?”

After I saw it this summer, I thought it was going to go back onto Broadway. Did it? Or will it?

“No. No it didn’t. It was supposed to, you’re right. But I don’t know, basically he decided not to do it. We had quite a crew – we had 20 people, you know. It was a big production, and I wish it had just stayed on Broadway. That would have been perfect – just stayed there, did a show, like everybody else does on Broadway.

“But when we started a tour with it is when we ran into a little bit of difficulty. It was really too big a show to sustain.”

Yeah. Speaking of that, are you guys ever going to do anything as The Rascals again? I mean, a lot of bands are doing 50th anniversary tours these days.

“Yes, I know [laughs]. You know, I have no idea. Seriously, I have no idea. You know, it’s interesting how people over the years, even though the years go by, they still have the same mentality as far as working. I always liked to work. I think it’s fun – anybody who doesn’t enjoy this should not do it. And I’m not sure all the guys feel like that. That perhaps they look at this as something that takes them away from their family, takes them away from their environment, and they’ve always been like that.

“So, OK – I have no idea. I just know that I feel – and I’m serious about this – very, very fortunate to be able to work after so many years in our business. And have people out there that really like to hear it – the music.”

Yeah. Are you still writing new material? Or do you have material in the works?

“I moved to Nashville for that very reason, you know? I think that the creative process is probably the most exciting process in life. That covers a lot of perimeters there, but I just love to write. So I moved down here to do that. And as a rule, I write with mostly younger people, who haven’t been jaded by our business and the fact that our business is in a little bit of trouble right now, you know?

“But I just keep writing and writing down here and doing new things and then we record them. And then I did two albums, for example, with Steve Cropper, who was also a Nashville resident.

“To me, it’s a way of life. And it’s great top do the old songs, but it’s also great to do new songs with new ideas. I just recently came back from New York, where I wrote two songs with John Sebastian from the [Lovin’] Spoonful.”

Wow, yeah.

“And it’s just fun. And hopefully some day some people will be able to hear them. I think with the Internet, there’s certainly a possibility.”

I sort of have to ask this type of question: After 50 years in the business, you’re a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy hall of Fame, is there anything left that you haven’t done or you still want to do?

“Well [laughs] I’ll tell you – we just came from, a few weeks ago, the ASCAP 100th anniversary. I’d like to get my 100-year chops going [Laughs]. I don’t know.”

[Laughs] Your 100-year tour.

“Exactly. It was a blast – they gave special awards to Billy Joel and Garth Brooks and Stephen Sondheim, Joan Baez and Stevie Wonder. And that was fun.

“I don’t know. I think that the most pleasurable thing to do is to look out there and see these smiling faces that really – really – enjoy and love what we did. That’s the best part. As long as I keep doing that, I’m OK.”